vi. the confession.

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A vicious ache seethes in Zoya's left thigh, presumably from a long night sleeping on the hard ground and long hours of travel, but as the walls of the cantina continue to tremble, it's the least of her worries. Keeping the child close to her chest, she loosely tails Cobb Vanth and Din to the entrance of the cantina, attempting to conceal her limp. (Din's gaze, made of sharpened knives and whispered oaths made at twilight, however, misses nothing, and beneath the helmet, his brows knit.)

As she arrives at the doorway, her thigh gives a particularly brutal twinge, the scar seeming to transform into a curl of fire.

Son of a bitch.

Outside, an alarm wails, mingling with the squeaking and groaning of the animals shifting with uneasiness. People dart down the streets hand in hand, yelling to one another. An abnormal disquiet settles like a blanket over Zoya's bones, gripping her with claws that are razor-sharp, enough to draw blood. It slips, crimson, down her arms, as she stares at the cloud of dirt on the horizon.

"What the hell," she mutters.

The ground is rippling, boiling, writhing. Sand churns, getting closer to Mos Pelgo by the second. It looks like an angry ocean torrent pummeling a beach, white froth foaming beneath the furious waves.

Softly, Din echoes her sentiment, hand motionless as stone on the hilt of his blaster. "That isn't good," he adds, just for her. Her lips tighten, and she glances his way. The afternoon light sparks off his beskar, turning him into an incarnate star, otherworldly and iridescent. It almost hurts to look at him.

"What is it?" Zoya says, holding the child tighter, as if the haven of her arms alone is enough to protect him from anything. Cobb Vanth keeps his eyes on the undulating stretch of ground that approaches, rolling between the buildings, and, jaw sharpening, he rakes a hand through his silver hair, roughening up the neat strands.

"You'll see," he replies grimly.

"That's not the answer I was looking for," she mutters, but returns her eyes to the rippling sand.

When it surges past them, Zoya can almost swear that she sees a row of ragged fins slicing through the surface. Her legs tremble, every instinct telling her to escape, but she holds firm, pushing her shoulders back until they're as solid as Din's. Whatever massive beast must be beneath the sand approaches a single bantha tethered to a post, drinking from a trough full of water. Sand explodes upward as the monster bursts from the ground, engulfing the creature. When the dust dissipates and the churning mounds of sand fade into the distance, the bantha is gone.

"Fuck."

Mouth a hard line, Cobb Vanth brushes invisible dust from his armor and says to Din as he turns away, "Maybe we can work something out."

Stiffness curls into Din's shoulders, hard as iron. Zoya nearly reaches out to touch him and attempt to drain some of it away, but restrains herself, turning to look again at the spot where the bantha was swallowed whole. A chill spiders its careful way over her shoulders, moving on an arachnid's prickling legs. She shivers as it reaches the base of her spine, the trembling of her skin reminiscent of the way she felt as Din first touched along her torso after she'd bandaged his shoulder, fingers nervous and aching and gentle as they splayed across her back. Like Din's armor beneath the sunlight, the memory stings too much to look at head on, and she clenches her jaw. Unversed in the language of longing, she suffocates the images in her head, unknowing of what else to do.

"A deal would be better than fighting each other to the death," Zoya observes after she's finished mentally cursing out her vivid imagination, and lets the child down. He promptly crosses to an empty pot by the cantina's entrance and climbs inside, ears poking out over the rim.

She feels him look at her. "Would it."

A shrug tugs up one of her shoulders. "Sure."

"You don't think I would win?"

"No," she says, "I think you would."

Din is silent for a brief moment, marinating in realization and still broiling anger. A young girl dashes across the sand giggling, onyx hair whipping in the breeze. "These people need a protector."

It's precisely what Zoya means, but there is no need to confirm it aloud. One glance at her features, and Din has already read her expression. Moving on feather-soft feet, he turns to follow Cobb Vanth along the road of Mos Pelgo without further delay, allowing her to tail them if she wishes.

She does.

As they walk, Cobb begins, "That creature's been terrorizing these parts since long before Mos Pelgo was established. Thanks to this armor, I've been able to protect this town from bandits and Sand People. They look to me to protect them, but a krayt dragon is too much for me to take on alone." Cobb pauses, resting his arm upon a wall that looks as if it has been decaying for a long time. "Help me kill it, and I'll give you the armor."

Zoya barely has enough time to roll the idea over in her own head before Din says, "Deal."

"That was quick."

He continues without acknowledgement, "I'll ride back to the ship, blow it out of the sand from the sky, use the bantha as bait."

Cobb shakes his head ruefully. "While I wouldn't deny some alone time with Vitaan"—the ghost of a smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth, and Zoya finds she is not completely immune—"it's not so simple. The ship passes above, it senses the vibrations, stays underground. But I know where it lives."

Din's bristling, but his tone remains level. "How far?"

"Not far."

"Good," Din says.

"And here I was, hoping that we'd have another overnight adventure and have to sleep out on the sand again," Zoya says.

Cobb raises a brow. "Really?"

"Oh, of course. I'm a big fan of field trips."

Zoya's joke flies over Vanth's head, but it doesn't matter as much when Din releases a soft laugh that only she hears.

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Though Cobb tells Zoya she can ride with him (which turns out to be an empty offer, as his speeder with its scavenged podracer engine only seats one, anyway), she chooses to climb on the back of the bike they arrived on, bequeathing the responsibility of driving to Din. The two speeders fly across the sands side by side, one occasionally pulling ahead or falling back, plumes of dust curling into the air as they skirt around the dunes.

"You don't understand what it was like," Cobb says over the engines as they enter a wide, flat stretch of sand. "The town was on its last legs. It started after we got news of the Death Star blowing up—the second one, that is. The Empire was pulling out of Tatooine; there was blaster fire over Mos Eisley. The occupation was over. We didn't even have time to celebrate." A certain darkness pulls into his voice, led by an invisible thread, a darkness that speaks of slaughter and bloodshed. "That very night, the Mining Collective moved in. Power hates a vacuum, and Mos Pelgo became a slave camp overnight. I lit out. Took what I could from the invaders, grabbed a camtono. I had no idea it was full of silicax crystals. I guess every once in a while, both suns shine on a womp rat's tail." He grins, mirth dancing lazily across his features and glittering in his eyes. "I wandered for days. No food, no water. And then, I was saved."

"By what?" Zoya asks, intrigued.

Vanth smiles. "Jawas."

Her lip curls.

"The Jawas wanted the crystals," Cobb continues, missing the animosity that flickers alight within Zoya's gaze. "They offered their finest in exchange." At this, he taps the breastplate of the armor with a finger, eyes lingering on the far-off horizon, the unreachable edge reflected in his pupils. "And my treasure bought me more than a full waterskin. It bought my freedom."

Zoya's smile falters for a beat.

"After I serve, we can be free. Go wherever we want. I just have to earn enough to get us there, first." Ayaan's smile is bright, hopeful, naïve.

The death of her brother's young, adolescent hope is seared in her memory, vivid and crimson and the end of the world, wreathed in awful, hungry flame. Her brows coalesce; her fingers tighten their grip across Din's torso, digging into the grooves of his chest plate. His head angles, chin tipping slightly back.

"Are you okay?" he says, dropping back slightly from Cobb's side.

"Fine," she manages. Her hatred (though not for him) seeps down from her brain, amalgamating with the blood running through her veins. A poison, it corrupts, eats at her ribs, claws its way towards her heart, angry and self-destructive. Zoya closes her eyes. The loathing takes its first slash at her left atrium, vicious and the blood of a nightmare. She barely notices when Din slows further.

"Zoya."

Her voice is choked. "What?"

"Tell me what's wrong, or I'm stopping this fucking bike. Are you okay? I can hear your breathing, it's all wrong, you're—"

"I'm fucking fine," she insists. "Just keep going."

Din doesn't let up. "Please."

Her lower lip trembles. "I . . . I was just"—self-hatred rears its abysmal shadowy head, teeth ivory bright—"thinking about my brother. And me. And how horrible I am, for—" Her voice unravels. The partial confession leaves her in a rush of exhaled breath and tears prickling at her eyes and a white-hot blade of pain burrowing into her stomach, and Zoya allows herself to rest her head against his back, holding in a sob that threatens to wrench through her lungs.

He is quiet for a long moment, long enough that outcroppings of rock begin to rise around them, scraping at the sky. Zoya wonders if he harbors some sort of misgivings towards her for what she'd done to Ayaan, too, and with another trembling exhale, she realizes that she can no longer force any blame onto him. Not for that, not for what he hid from her, not for anything.

He still hasn't found it within himself to reply when Cobb pulls his speeder up short, holding up a closed fist.

"Off," Din says sharply, yanking their bike to a shuddering stop.

Zoya practically flings herself back into a crouch behind the speeder in her rush to obey, eyes burning from restrained tears carving salty tracks across her irises and her heart, hand flying to the blaster at her hip and yanking it free. Din dismounts swiftly and snatches up his rifle, aiming at the path ahead. Growls and distant chatter echo off the bluffs above, tumbling down the cliff faces like shards of rock.

A massiff emerges from the bend in the path, a reptilian beast with its sharp teeth bared and glistening with saliva. It snarls, and three other massiffs come to its aid, prowling atop the boulders and growling low in the backs of their throats.

Her eyes skid off Cobb, who's tightening his grip on his blaster, raising it higher in preparation to fire. "Mando—" Zoya starts to hiss.

Din calls out something in a foreign language, hand cupped in front of his visor. His voice echoes off the cliffs, and the massiffs pull back, hesitating. He glances at Zoya and lifts a hand placatingly as if to say I've got this before striding forward past their hastily halted speeder bikes. She turns the phrase he'd said over in her head. Though she isn't fluent, the speech pattern is familiar. Tusken?

"What the hell are you doing?" Cobb says.

Din merely waves him off with the same pacifying gesture he'd given Zoya without stopping, continuing his path towards the reptilian beasts.

Miffed, Vanth cuts his gaze to Zoya. "What is he doing?"

"I don't know," she says. "Saving our asses, probably."

"Hopefully it doesn't become a frequent occurrence," Cobb mutters, and does not lower his blaster.

Stopping before the massiffs, he raises his hand and speaks again. Definitely Tusken. When he finishes, one of the beasts gallops towards him and makes a happy grumbling noise, lifting its head in contentment as Din drops into a crouch to scratch its sides. A smile catches Zoya by surprise as it tangles across her lips.

"That's . . . actually kind of cute," she says.

Cobb grunts. "The fucking massiff?"

Before she can answer, a small group of Tusken Raiders come into view. They observe the scene in silence for a moment, from Din to the two speeders and Zoya and Cobb, and then, cautiously, they begin to communicate.

"Do you know what they're saying? I can't understand shit," Cobb says.

Zoya's head shakes. "Nope. Tried to pick it up last time I was here, but I've never been that good at languages."

"Damn." His fingers twitch on the handle of his blaster, and just before Zoya opens her mouth to tell him not to do anything stupid, Cobb calls out, "Hey partner, wanna tell us what's going on?"

Din turns, and light glints off his beskar, outlining him in luminescent gold, and explains, "They want to kill the krayt dragon, too."

"Finally, some good fucking news."

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The Tuskens escort Din, Zoya, and Cobb back to their campsite, a much larger group than the Raiders they'd stayed with on the way to Mos Pelgo. At least a dozen tents pepper the sand, makeshift lanterns interspaced throughout. The Tuskens, after communicating with Din throughout the trip and leaving Zoya and Cobb to themselves, seem to have taking a liking to the Mandalorian. After arriving at the camp, Din relays that they've offered food and shelter for the night.

Seated around the fire, Zoya doesn't feel as isolated as she had the night Din and her had stumbled upon the Raiders alone. This time, there's someone else who doesn't have a clue what's going on. After a couple minutes of listening to the sounds of an unfamiliar language fill the air, foreign and almost musical, enraptured with the constellations above, Zoya turns to Cobb Vanth. He looks bored and even slightly uncomfortable, forearms resting upon his knees and eyes focused upon the dancing flames.

"How have you been?" she asks lamely, unable to think of anything else. The child shifts in her lap and gazes up at her almost reproachfully, as if disappointed in her conversation starter.

"Honestly," Cobb says, "I've been better." There's an edge to his voice, roughed further by the stark shadows that the flickering fire casts across his face. His eyes go to her, and, keeping his voice low as to not interrupt Din and the Tuskens, he adds, leaning in, "You seem good, though. Much better than last time."

"Do I?" she says, unconvinced.

Cobb nods, and surveys her with his head tilted, stubble-roughened jaw relaxing slightly. Behind him, Din glances their way, curious, but the Raiders snag his attention once more. "Last time you had a hell of a limp."

"I'd forgotten about that." Zoya's fingers stray unconsciously to her thigh and its knot of a scar. Pain still lingers beneath her skin, but its dulled, subdued and softly uncomfortable, not enough to truly bother her. The child slips off her lap, toddling around the fire towards Din. "Last time you said you liked my scar."

"Did I?" A smirk dresses his mouth, and he shrugs, dismissive. "I don't recall you showing me any sort of scar"—his eyes go to where her fingers knead at her upper thigh—"especially not in a spot like that."

Zoya rolls her eyes; her restless hands return to her lap. "Is that you asking to see it again?"

"Is that you offering?"

Before Zoya can decide how to answer him (and likely turn both him and his implications down), a heavy quiet encompasses the campfire. She glances away from Cobb to see the Tusken Raiders and Din looking their way, all unreadable, draped with silence and expectation; she finds she is unable to look at Din, wondering how much of the last bits of their conversation he heard. The chieftain is holding out a halved black melon towards Cobb, waiting patiently.

Uncertainly, Vanth accepts the melon and lifts it to his nose, movements stiff and forced. He leans towards Din and mutters, "What am I supposed to do with this?"

"You drink it," Din says flatly.

"It stinks."

His voice is sharper than it needs to be when he replies, and Zoya nearly grimaces before catching herself. "Do you want their help?"

"Not if I have to drink this," Cobb says.

Immediately incensed, the Raider begins to respond, voice and hand movements both agitated. Voice infused with black ice, Din translates, "He says your people steal their water and now you insult them by not drinking it. They know about Mos Pelgo; they know how many Sand People you killed."

"They raided our village," Cobb retorts. "I defended the town."

"Lower your voice," Din orders, sensing the rising tension, at the same time that Zoya mutters, "Easy."

"I knew this was a bad idea." Cobb throws the melon at the fire, thick brows heavy and lowered over his eyes, betraying his rising anger.

Din warns, "You're agitating them."

One of the Raiders stands up, and though Zoya can't understand what he says, it's clear that Vanth is upsetting them. Uneasiness rises within her chest, a bristling, heated wave of nerves that drives pinpricks of electricity into every limb.

"These monsters can't be reasoned with!" Cobb pushes to his feet and jabs a finger into the Raider's face. "Sit back down before I put a hole through you!"

Furious, the Raider yells incoherently back.

"Mando—" Zoya begins.

But he's already moving. Din lifts his arm and flame erupts with a roar, bathing them all in angry orange light. He rises in cohesion with the loud, growling hostility of the flamethrower, effectively silencing their argument. Speaking in Tusken, he first addresses the chieftain.

"What are you telling them?" Cobb's temper is still fraying.

"Impatient, are we?" Zoya says.

Her comment goes unnoticed as Din replies, "Same thing I'm telling you. If we fight amongst ourselves, the monster will kill us all. Now, how do we kill it?" He enunciates each word with a gesture, communicating in both languages with ease.

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Afterwards, the Tusken Raiders direct them towards which tents they're able to use for the night. Cobb Vanth leaves immediately, silently claiming one for himself. The harsh set of his shoulders and the irritation still burning, barely concealed, within his eyes, tells them not to follow. Zoya and Din cross to the other, walking slowly enough that the child can keep up, toddling along the sand with little gurgles every now and then. The starlight illuminates the world, casting everything in a soft ivory glow.

Din glances back at the Raiders still gathered around the fire, and catches Zoya's arm gently, gloved fingers holding the soft area above her elbow. She turns to look at him, confused when he tugs her behind the tent, away from their watchful eyes.

"What—"

"Don't think I forgot about what you told me earlier," he says softly. All other sounds slowly fade away, and she just stares at him for a moment, caught off guard, shields still lowered and unprepared. Panicked, Zoya almost scrambles to raise them, but something about the tone of his voice gives her pause. "Nothing you have done changes the fact that you are one of the kindest, bravest people I know."

She shakes her head. "That's not true."

"I believe it is."

"I killed my fucking brother," she chokes. "How am I not horrible, for that? I killed my own family—" The words refuse to come anymore after that, and the tears from earlier are finally victorious.

But the second they spill down her cheeks, hot and salty and full of shame, Din's pulling her forward into his arms, tucking her tight against his chest. One of his hands cradles the back of her head as he leans down, and her eyes find the stars, tears blurring them into an abstract myriad of heavenly light.

"He wasn't the brother you knew," he reminds her softly, gently, as carefully as possible. "He was trying to kill you."

Zoya clings to him, a sob tearing through her chest. "I know," she breathes shakily, barely legible through the torrent of anguish clouding her soul. "But it doesn't change how much I hate myself for it."

Din is quiet for a moment before he responds, "I don't think you would be human if you didn't."

Her lips tremble. "After all the things I said to you," Zoya whispers into his armor, and closes her eyes, "how can you be so forgiving to me?" It's not enough, this time, to just imagine his arms wrapped around her without the beskar keeping them apart, his body soft and warm and real and close against hers. Her heart still aches.

"You know why," Din says.

Zoya's brow scrunches, and her tears drip onto his breastplate, tiny flecks of diamond in a sea of silver. She doesn't answer, because fear clutches at her throat, mingling with the awful sorrow that still wraps her in a vise. And perhaps she doesn't need to; for a long while, endless seconds or several minutes, Zoya does not know, the silence is sufficient, a cool blanket against the night, and they simply hold each other underneath the tapestry of stars and the glow of Tatooine's three moons.

Din only releases her when she's stopped crying, stopped trembling with the weight of her grief, and allows her to wipe at her eyes, pretending that he doesn't notice the weakness quivering at her fingertips.

"Can't wait to kill that fucking dragon and get the hell out of here," Zoya mutters finally, voice rough, trying to ease away from the gravity of the moment they've just experienced. "Just another regular day, when I'm hanging out with you."

"Right."

"Actually, you know what would be worse than this?" she says, donning her typical wit and humor like her own silver armor. "If fucking Toro showed up again. Then I'd actually be pissed off."

Din laughs—a real, actual laugh—at this, and the weight of the moment crumbles. "Well, seeing as he's dead, I think that's impossible."

Zoya snorts. "Thank you for reminding me. I almost got myself all worked up into a rage."

"Aren't you always in a rage?"

"Piss off," she mutters, but is secretly thrilled when he laughs once more.

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a/n: i haven't updated since last year i'm so sorry 😔 (i used this joke in the last book did u rlly think i wouldn't use it here) below is a Very Sexy moodboard look at dinzoya in this book, if u wanna see this along w other random graphics i make, i post some of them on my instagram @/jcpiters.wp! i always accept followers so go and request if you want <3